Leadership is often associated with authority and visibility, but senior Tsion Gerbaba said she takes a different approach. She leads compassionately, valuing diligence over control and impact over recognition.
Gerbaba’s path from Ethiopia to Pepperdine has developed her understanding of leadership and service, shaping her aspiration to work for the United Nations.
“I want to be a kind of leader who works in the background and actually gets things done,” Gerbaba said. “My dream is to be rich in giving, in generosity, in loving people and caring for them.
Childhood
Gerbaba said she grew up in Ethiopia in a small town called Shegole located high in the mountains of East Africa.
“I grew up in a small little bubble,” Gerbaba said. “A lot of my childhood memories are just being involved in church, but also playing with my brothers, my mom, my dad and all my friends. It was a sweet childhood.”
Gerbaba said her family laid the foundation for her guiding values today.
“My family grounded me in the idea that I need to be strong in my faith and strong in my education,” Gerbaba said.
Throughout high school, Gerbaba had plans to attend a university in another country but said her final years of high school didn’t go as she expected.
“Because of Covid, we couldn’t finish high school,” Gerbaba said. “Then, a war erupted in Ethiopia in 2020, and that was the year when I was a senior.”
Gerbaba said those in the regions affected by the conflict could not take the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Examination (EHEEE), a nationwide exam students take at the end of high school, because the schools were destroyed. She had to wait another academic year before she was able to get the scores she needed to apply to universities.
Gerbaba said she struggled to decide which university to pick after applying to a wide variety of schools, but once she had the idea of applying to a Christian university, she discovered Pepperdine.
“I found out Pepperdine gives one scholarship to one African student every four years,” Gerbaba said. “You have to be lucky to be applying the year they’re giving it out.”
After learning the year of her application lined up with the scholarship opportunity, Gerbaba said she applied and won.
“For me, it was a lesson,” Gerbaba said. “When I started to seek God [during the college application process], I found the school.”
Pepperdine
Gerbaba said she arrived at Pepperdine in the fall of 2022.
“The hardest part was leaving family, as it is for most students,” Gerbaba said. “But the most exciting part about leaving was the freedom, the independence you feel, how you get to make decisions for your life. It can be hard, but it led me to depend more on God than my family.”
Gerbaba said she first made friends through spiritual life events at Pepperdine.
“Coming as a freshman, English was not my first language,” Gerbaba said. “The only way to make friends was to go to spiritual events — like worship nights, Bible studies, prayer nights. Although I struggled to pray or express my ideas at the time, that was how I found my best friends today.”
Gerbaba said she continues to be involved in spiritual life at Pepperdine because she wants to give back to the community that poured into her.
“I just want to be an instrument for people to encounter God — like I did,” Gerbaba said.
Gerbaba said she is on the Pepperdine Spiritual Leadership Cohort. Through this group, she gets to work with Pepperdine’s Community and Engagement Service (CES) and lead a new student-led ministry called Jesus Moves, where students worship God through movement and dance.
“On the Malibu campus, the community is very strong,” Gerbaba said. “If I need a prayer, there are people that I can go to, and the friends I have who are very strong in their Christian life can actually lead me.”
Senior Alli Hilliard, who serves on the Pepperdine Spiritual Leadership Cohort with Tsion, said she is inspired by Tsion’s ability to bring others into God’s presence.
“It’s easy for Tsion to give praise to God or acknowledge His hand in her life as she’s navigating this journey she’s on,” Hilliard said. “Oftentimes we can separate our faith from our life, but Tsion does a really good job at joining those two together.”
Abroad
Gerbaba said she experienced the most personal growth during her sophomore year.
“Studying abroad was an experience that I never expected I would have,” Gerbaba said.
Gerbaba studied in Pepperdine’s Switzerland Program her sophomore year and spent the spring semester of her junior year in Washington D.C.
Gerbaba said she worked in D.C. with the International Justice Mission, a Christian organization that works to defend human rights and protect vulnerable communities.
“I was exposed to anti-human trafficking work, which was eye-opening,” Gerbaba said. “There’s so much suffering in the world. We can’t take on the full burden, because it’s going to destroy us, but we can pray for them and also be faithful — be obedient and go out and do something to help them.”
Brian Swarts, the Washington, D.C., program director, said what made Gerbaba different from the other Global Fellows Program students was her passion to make a difference in the world.
“Her leadership style is very much rooted in empathy,” Swarts said. “She seeks to empower those around her rather than give orders.”
In the global leadership seminar Swarts taught, Gerbaba chose to focus her major project on people displaced by conflict in Ethiopia, presenting a well-researched solution shaped by local context and a vision that extended beyond refugees to the entire community, Swarts said.
“Everything she aspires to as a leader is very much rooted in her own story and life experience,” Swarts said. “It makes it clear to people that she’s not just doing it [leading] because she wants to be in charge or wants their recognition, but she’s doing it as an expression of her vocation and her sense of calling in the world.”
After she graduates, Gerbaba said she wants to work in Africa for an international organization like the African Union or the United Nations.
“Those organizations push you to go out and see what is actually being decided on,” Gerbaba said. “What is actually being worked on by different humanitarian organizations to implement solutions to so many problems happening in the world.”
Leadership
Gerbaba said her main interest is to work with people who have been displaced due to war.
“Those people don’t have places to go to,” Gerbaba said. “I want to be like a bridge for them — the person they can get resources they need from, and at the same time, I want to be there for them to encourage them.”
Gerbaba said participating in Pepperdine Model United Nations (Model U.N.) helped her to envision her future.
“I am very creative when I solve problems,” Gerbaba said. “It’s a gift, and I want to use my creativity to actually do something on the ground — not just for myself but for other people too.”
Junior Abby Rader said she also studied in D.C. in the spring of 2025 and had the opportunity to see Gerbaba’s leadership firsthand through Model U.N.
“Her passion is what makes her a good leader,” Rader said. “She doesn’t put you down or assert superiority over you. She is humble, loving and has so much life experience to share.”
Looking toward graduation, Gerbaba said she is sad to leave Pepperdine but excited to see what God has planned next for her.
“My life is fully dependent on God, and I really don’t want to be in control,” Gerbaba said. “I want to dream with God, because when you dream by yourself, your dream is just a dream, but when you dream with God, He can change the world.”
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Contact Annslee Mitchell via email: annslee.mitchell@pepperdine.edu